Miss United States of America can ban trans woman by enforcing vile ‘natural born’ rule, judge says
Trans beauty queen and activist Anita Green sued Miss United States of America. (Instagram/ anitanoellegreen)
A judge has ruled that the Miss United States of America beauty pageant is legally allowed to exclude trans women.
Donald Trump-appointed judge Lawrence VanDyke handed down the vile ruling on Wednesday (2 November) at the ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
The case was brought by Anita Green, a trans activist and beauty who argued that the pageant’s rule of only allowing “natural born” women to compete violated anti-discrimination laws in her home state of Oregon.
In 2021, a federal judge dismissed Green’s lawsuit, and this week, the appeals court upheld this ruling in a 2-1 decision.
VanDyke was joined in upholding the ruling by another George W Bush appointee Carlos Bea.
According to Reuters, VanDyke said that requiring Miss United States of America to admit trans women would violate its constitutional free speech rights.
He disgustingly wrote in his judgement: “It is commonly understood that beauty pageants are generally designed to express the ‘ideal vision of American womanhood’.”
Green applied to take part in the pageant in 2019.
At the time, she was the reigning 2019 Miss Earth Elite Oregon queen, a pageant owned by a different organisation, but had set her sights on becoming Miss United States of America.
Contestants must be crowned in their home state before going up against 50 other women for the Miss United States of America pageant title, so she applied to the Miss Oregon pageant.
However, her application was rejected because she is trans.
On her decision to file the lawsuit, she Williamette Week: “I felt as though I was being invalidated. I felt as though the organisation was saying I am not a woman and I’m not woman enough.”
She also said that her participation in beauty pageants was “about giving minorities a voice”.
She said: “I believe I’m beautiful, and I want to set an example for all women —cisgender and transgender — that beauty doesn’t have to fit into specific moulds.”
